Review copy kindly provided by Yen Press

About the Mangaka

Not a lot of information on Hoshino Lily sorry. She does have a website but it’s all in Japanese. If you have any info hit that contact me button!!

About the Manga

love quest cover

This is one I was not looking forward to this month, in fact if Lisa hadn’t sent it for me to review I wouldn’t have missed it on bit. Why? Because it’s a Yaoi title, and I don’t really like Yaoi.

I decided to read this first for several reasons, firstly it was yaoi and wanted to get it over with, and secondly it’s a single volume story.

However I was mildly surprised at the content of the story and found myself enjoying it. I think classing this as a yaoi is bit to much, I’m more inclined to say it’s shonen-ai, as the only sex is in the two extras at the very end of the story.

I really like Lily’s art style in this, though for some reason Marion looks ugly to me, though she’s supposed to be a babe. Or at least that was the impression I got from the skimpy outfit and the way she talks. That said I suppose having a hot girl or two in the story would detract from the boys :D

One thing I didn’t like was the art for Kazunori and Earl, especially Earl. There’s effeminate, and then there’s girls without breasts, which is how these two are drawn at times. Earl is the worst, I went though the first few encounters thinking he was a flat chested girl. Stick a dress on them and you’d be wanting to date them :)

This goes a bit to far IMO, everything about Earl screams girl at first. I mean the clothes he’s wearing, the hair do, the way he talks, everything screams girl.

The other problem this volume has is the story, which is rather weak. This is due I think to this being a single volume story. This doesn’t allow any sort of depth to the story. Nor does it allow for any real character development. One of the key points for me is the relationship between Kazunori and Moriya, it goes from a one sided love to a full blown relationship in the turn of a page.

There are also to many unanswered questions, such as why Harada was summoned by the enemy, since she’s a girl, also just who the enemy is and why they’re the enemy. Who Marion is, what she’s doing, and why she’s wearing next to nothing >.<

If this was the first volume of a new series it wouldn’t be to bad a volume, however since it’s a stand alone these issues cause some problems for me.

There are three extras in this volume, two side stories and omake. One of the side stories is unrelated to the main story, but gives the volume it’s mature rating as it is here that the sex scenes are explicitly shown. The second goes back to the main story and is funny as it deals with Marion learning what manners are.

Yen did a great job as usual with this release. Tania did a great job with the lettering, there was no overly wasted space. Though there was some minor guttering in the volume.

Mari’s translation was smooth and consistent, and felt right, it didn’t feel as though it had been re-written.

As usual Yen left the colour panel intact, and I must admit, that even though I don’t like yaoi all that much, I love that panel.

Yen seem to have picked up Mr Flower Bride by Lily as well, since that’s an actual series it will hopefully allow her to show off her skill to it’s best. Since this volume doesn’t give her the time or the chance to really do this.

While I’ll admit I did enjoy this volume, the lack of any depth to the characters, and the number of unanswered questions, mean i can’t really recommend it. As such it doesn’t get onto my Essential Read list. Though it’s not bad enough to make it to my Junk Pile.

Where to Buy

This volume isn’t released until 28th October 2008

  • Share/Bookmark